$1.6 Million Napa Valley Jail Expansion Still 24-Months Out

$1.6 Million Napa Valley Jail Expansion Still 24-Months Out

Although county officials say they're planning on building a new Napa County Jail complex, the first item of business is to open a re-entry facility that will help soon-t0-be released inmates transition back into society.

The Board of Supervisors is set to vote on whether to authorize the $1.6 million in spending for the re-entry center later this week. If approved, those funds will be allocated toward design work; the supes are also considering another $378,000 request that would be needed to pay for utilities design work.

Sources close to the project, however, point out that the phase-one spending isn't aimed …

OC Considers Mass Overhaul To Bail Bonds System

Sources close to the Orange County Jail system say the county is considering moving forward with a pilot program for some of its inmates. If approved, jails will take a more risk-based approach deciding which defendants are released before their first court date.

Proponents say there are a number of pre-trial defendants who remain behind bars because they cannot afford to post bail bonds.
Creating Risk While Evaluating Risk
Opponents feel the proposed change in the system is a risky move. When an individual is released from jail through bail, the bail bonds company and the person who signed the bail contract …

Whopper of a Backpack Found at BK

$100,000 cash found at San Jose Burger King
A Burger King employee had the shock of her life last week when she found an abandoned backpack near one of the fast food restaurant's tables.

It was just another normal day, according to sources, and it seemed that a patron had randomly left the item behind. But when the owner of the franchise took a peek inside, he never imagined he'd find roughly $100,000 in cash.
Piles of $50s, stacks of $100s
The assistant manager said she first spotted the bag while she was wiping down tables on Wednesday; she didn't think too much …

Top 5 Holiday Travel Tips To Keep You Safe

Holiday travel can be as hectic as it is stressful, but if you take the time to make a mental note of these five tips, you're bound to come out ahead of the game.
1. Be careful what is in your suitcase
Each year, bail bonds companies get countless calls from airline passengers who didn't know they were carrying "contraband" in their carry-on suitcases.
Things such as pocket knives, brass knuckles can be flagged as weapons by the TSA. Oddly, some we've had calls from people who literally didn't know they had a hand gun in a carry-on.
If a passenger is found …

Inside the Jail: Gay Wing of LA’s Men’s Central

Throughout the nation, LGBT inmates say they struggle to find their place within jail and prison populations.

Standard procedure is to separate inmates by their gender, but sometimes, when it comes to gay, lesbian and transgender detainees, that’s a slippery slope.
Separate and equal
The solution in the Los Angeles Men’s Central Jail has been a unique one: allow gay inmates to live in their own quarters. The idea wasn’t organic.

It stemmed from a 1985 ACLU lawsuit that alleged gay inmates were far more likely to endure physical violence at the hands of other detainees than their heterosexual counterparts.

LA Jails To Finally Become ADA Compliant

Disabled and wheelchair-bound inmates at the LA County Jails have will get a bit of relief.

Elected officials said they will be moving forward with plans to redesign the county lock-ups to ensure the facilities are ADA compliant. This, according to sources, ends a six-year long legal battle.

Inmates have long complained that bathrooms were not wheelchair accessible and because of that, some people were soiling themselves. Others were falling out of their chairs altogether because they do not have wall-bars to grab onto.

Getting in and out of shower facilities posed a whole other list of dangerous situations.

Job Interview Fail: Arrested For Stabbing The Boss

A San Diego man found himself behind bars earlier this week after he arrived at a job interview drunk and proceeded to stab the boss.

A spokesperson for the El Cajon Police Department said the incident took place on Monday; at that point, Jose Lopez walked into the office of his latest job prospect but the owner quickly smelled booze on his breath.

Showing up at a job interview while intoxicated is not exactly good form; the boss was annoyed and he confronted the applicant on his faux pas.

Lopez became angry, then irate, and eventually it escalated to physical contact. Although …

What Bail Bonds Accomplish for Criminal Justice System

Last week, Louisiana-based newspaper published an op-ed from from the Executive Director of the state's ACLU that essentially slammed the commercial bail industry.

Her perspective seems to be that the bail bonds industry is the root of the the problems in the Louisiana criminal justice system. Her thesis being that pre-trial defendant's are in jail because they are financially disadvantage and greedy bail agents want to keep the system in place.

This week, ExpertBail's Eric Granoff helped to set the record straight in his article "What's Right With the Louisiana Bail System?"

ACLU Voicing Concern Over Spy Tools That Track Ex-Cons

The Los Angeles Police Department is hardly denying that it's using technology to help keep track of where ex-cons, and those who are most likely to break the law, are most likely to be found.

Not only do these tools allow higher-ups to assign additional patrol officers to these areas, they say, it's also helped reduce crime rates.

Part of it relates to data collection while the other part is real-time computer tracking; the program uses both street-intelligence and high-speed computer calculations to point officers in a particular direction. Sources within the LAPD says it's been so successful that the program …